Nickel Belt MPP and NDP health critic France Gélinas has reintroduced a bill aimed at increasing the availablility of organs for transplant in Ontario.
The Peter Kormos Memorial Act (Saving Organs to Save Lives), 2022, which would change organ and tissue donation in Ontario to one of “presumed consent,” meaning all people are assumed to be organ donors unless they specify otherwise.
In a release, Gélinas pointed to Nova Scotia, which uses a presumed consent organ donation system and has seen a 40-per-cent increase in organ and tissue donation since making the change.
“This bill will take people off transplant wait lists,” said Gélinas. “It will help not only save lives, but help transplant recipients live longer, more productive lives by getting people their transplants sooner.”
The Nickel Belt MPP said while many people want to donate their organs, most don’t fill out the correct paperwork to ensure that happens upon their death.
“Ontario has among the best organ donation surgeons and nurses in the world,” Gélinas said in a news release. “We have the skills and the knowledge to do those procedures, the specialized hospital programs to care for the recipients, the dedicated workers to support donor and recipient families.
“But although 90 per cent of Ontarians want to be a donor, only 36 per cent are registered. My bill would change the lives of hundreds of people on the organ transplant list today.”
The bill is named after Welland MPP Peter Kormos, an advocate for organ donation. Kormos died March 30, 2013. Kormos was pushing to make changes to the organ donation system for years.
In the release, Gélinas includes a statement on donation Kormos made 16 years ago.
“We have laws that ensure that in the event somebody dies without a will, his or her assets are distributed to the next of kin,” said Kormos in 2006. “If you don't make a will in this province, it's presumed that you intend for your assets to be given to your children, your grandchildren and your sisters and brothers in a statutory schedule of who constitutes next of kin. I tell you that presumed intent legislation would do the same for organs.”
